modern world exam
british dominance
• England had disposed of its surplus population during its industrial revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by sending large numbers of its nationals to the inhabitable coastlands of North America, Australia, New Zealand, and southern Africa.
• India had come under effective British control by the middle of the nineteenth century.
suez canal- 1869
• The sea route – a much more economical and less dangerous route -came to be regarded by Britain's governing class as a "lifeline" to its possessions in Asia.
• WHY? Because Britain customarily produced no more than 30 percent of the food consumed by her population and a considerable amount of her imported foodstuffs and industrial raw materials came from her Asian and Pacific possessions (India, Australia, and New Zealand),
white mans burden
• Another motivating factor: to provide the uncivilized, backward peoples of the colonial world with the fruits of Britain's superior culture, in particular the spiritual inspiration of Christianity and the political benefits of enlightened administration.
french dominance
• Main motivation: National Prestige.
• Germany became the dominant power on the European continent and France sought the psychological compensation of territorial conquest distant regions of the non-European world.
• A third of the continent of Africa, a large section of Southeast Asia (consolidated politically as "French Indochina"), and a few island chains in the South Pacific had been brought under French control.
german dominance
• In 1897 the German Kaiser caused a sensation by announcing Weltpolitik, a "world policy," that was designed to project Germany's military, economic, and political power into the worldwide competition for empire.
• The Chinese port of Kiao-Chow on the Yellow Sea was seized as a potential refueling station for a future German Far Eastern fleet.
• 1898- Kaiser visited the Ottoman Empire to declare himself «protector» of the 300 million Moslem inhabitants of the earth.- Challenge to British and French positions in North Africa and the Middle East.
russian dominance
• As the Russian Empire's expanding frontier began to approach the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, it began to press against the competing interests of other expansionist states.
sick man
• The city of Istanbul/Constantinople, spiritual capital of Eastern Orthodoxy (the official faith of the Russian Empire) had remained under the control of the Turks.
• Ottoman Empire lived up to its reputation as the "sick man of Europe" by relinquishing political authority over the Slavic peoples of the Balkans. The independence of Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Montenegro was confirmed,
russo-japaense war 1904-1905
• Japanese expansion to the mainland brought it into conflict with Russia, whose economic penetration of Manchuria and northern Korea had begun in the same period.
• The Japanese navy quickly bottled up the small Russian fleet based at Port Arthur, while the Japanese army defeated the Russian army stationed in Manchuria.
results of russo-japan war
• 1- first instance in the modern era of a non-Western nation defeating a great power of Europe: nationalist revolutions erupted in Persia (1905), Turkey (1908), and China ( 1911).
• 2- undermining the political authority of the Romanov dynasty.
• 3- gradual rapprochement between the Tsarist regime and Great Britain. The destruction of Russian seapower in the Far East had removed one of the principal sources of British hostility to Russia and left Germany as the only potential threat to Britain's mastery of the seas.
pan americanism
• Misconception that the two continents (North America and South America) of the new world formed a single geographic unit that stood apart from the other continents of the earth.
• By sea, Rio de Janeiro is considerably closer to the west coast of Africa than to any port in the United States.
• By air, Washington is closer to Moscow than to Buenos Aires.
• International Conference of American States in 1889- inter-American economic and political cooperation-
• Pan-American Union- hemispheric political system dominated by the United States and emancipated from the overbearing influence of the European powers
panama canal
• A revolution in Colombia's northwestern province on the Isthmus of Panama received the active support of the American government, which promptly recognized Panama as an independent republic.
• In February 1904 the new nation signed a treaty authorizing the United States to construct a fifty-mile-long canal across the isthmus in a zone leased and fortified by the government in Washington.
• The newly created client states of Cuba and Panama were forced to include clauses in their constitutions stipulating the right of the United States to intervene to protect their independence and preserve social order, and both were induced to authorize the construction of American bases on their territory.
german economy and miltary
• 1- German industrial revolution was marked by a marriage of convenience between large-scale agriculture and heavy industry that promoted the expansion of the latter without threatening the socioeconomic position of the former.
• MARRIAGE OF IRON AND RYE
• 2- concentration and centralization.
• The key sectors of heavy industry (iron, steel, coal, armaments, chemicals, and electrical products) were dominated by a handful of gigantic firms that had acquired a degree of control over production and distribution unmatched in the industrial world of that time.
• German Empire was losing its margin of strategic superiority in Europe over the combined armed forces of France and Russia.
schlieffen plan
• chief of the imperial general staff (1902-1906) envisioned the concentration of German military power in the west in the expectation that the numerically inferior French army could be defeated within a six-week period, after which the bulk of the German forces could be transferred to the eastern front to meet the Russian army.
• It was based on 2 assumptions:
• 1. overwhelming German numerical superiority against France
• 2. inability of the Russian Empire, with its primitive system of land transportation, to deploy its numerically superior army along the German frontier before the knockout blow in the west.
failure of schlieffen plan
• In 1913 France extended the period of national military service from two to three years- France would be able to field a frontline army equal to the size of the German army by 1915 or 1916.
• Russian government had launched a program of strategic railway construction linking central Russia with the western frontier.
goals of germany
• permanent destruction of French military power through the annexation of the territory containing France's principal fortresses along the German frontier
• the occupation of France's major ports on the English Channel,
• and imposition of a crushing financial indemnity that would prevent the reconstruction of France's armed forces in the foreseeable future.
• Russia was to be systematically thrust back as far as possible from Germany's eastern frontier and her domination over the non-Russian peoples broken.
• This would definitively establish imperial Germany as the hegemonic power of Europe.
gallipoli campaign
• The attempt by the Allied fleet to force the Dardanelles in February 1915 failed and was followed by an amphibious landing on the Gallipoli peninsula in April 1915.
• Ottoman forces held the Allies back from their real objectives with relative ease.
• The campaign did cause enormous damage to Ottoman national resources and at that stage of the war the Allies were in a better position to replace their losses than the Ottomans.
• Ultimately the Allied attempt at securing a passage through the Dardanelles proved unsuccessful.
arab revolt
• British officials sought out a Muslim dignity who might be persuaded to ally with the Entente powers and to serve as a counterweight to the prestige of Ottoman Sultan/Caliph.
• They found «amir of Mecca», Sharif Husayn Ibn Ali. His office was the most prestigious Arab-Islamic position within the Ottoman Empire.
• Agreement was reached. Husayn’s ambitions were secured by a Great Power guarantee, and Britain acquired a well-placed Muslim ally.
• Arab Revolt started in June 1916. Arabs joined British forces in the region and defeated the Ottomans.
sykes-picot agreement
• Negotiators from Britain and France drew up a secret treaty in May 1916.
• They divided the Arab Middle East between them.
• Agreement recognized the long-standing French claims to Syria by awarding France a «direct control» along the Syrian coast from southern Lebanon into Anatolia.
• British position in Iraq was guaranteed. Britain gained the right of «direct control» over the southern portion of Mesopotamia.
• Independent Arab State promised to Husayn was designated as a confederation of states lying in the two zones of British and French indirect influence.
balfour declaration
• In order to appeal the Jewish people and to secure control over the territory adjacent to Suez Canal, Britain agreed to favor the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
• Balfour Declaration- November 1917 was conveyed in a letter from British Foreign Secretary Balfour to Rothschild, who was a prominent British Zionist.
bolshevik revolution
• November 7, 1917
• The Bolshevik leader V. I. Lenin had been granted safe transit by railway across German territory from his haven in neutral Switzerland to the Russian capital.
• Lenin's publicly announced program included the immediate cessation of the war, if necessary by a separate peace with the Central Powers.
enterance of us
• 1- strong sense of kinship with British traditions and institutions felt by key members of the American government, beginning with the president himself.
• 2- American economic prosperity and corporate profits had become increasingly dependent on orders from Germany's enemies for munitions, machinery, textiles, grain, oil, copper, steel, and other products.
woodrow wilson
• He believed that war was traceable to three principal causes.
• 1- The practice of secret diplomacy,
• 2- The tendency of politically dominant nationality groups to oppress the ethnic minorities under their control.
• 3- The political system of autocracy, which enabled a privileged elite to monopolize political power at the expense of the population at large.
• 1- Free and open discussion of international issues- will maximize the beneficent influence of public opinion and minimize the role of secretive intrigues by imperialistically inclined national leaders.
• 2- The map of Europe was to be redrawn according to the principle of national self-determination so as to liberate the long-suppressed aspirations of nationality groups.
• 3- The internal political institutions of Europe would be democratized so as to remove the autocratic constraints on public opinion.
• Point 14- A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.
league of nations
• While each member state was to be represented by one vote in the General Assembly of the new organization, the principal decision-making body, called the Council, included permanent seats for delegates of the five great powers. (England, France, Italy, USA and Japan)
• Each permanent member could veto any proposal that threatened to impinge upon its national interests.
• The British and French colonial empires were treated as single political units.
• The right to national self-determination went unrecognized insofar as the non-European populations of the colonial world were concerned.
new states
• Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.
• 1 million German-speaking citizens of Posen and West Prussia were incorporated into the new state of Poland in order to satisfy that fledgling nation's need for access to a seaport on the Baltic.
• In order to provide Czechoslovakia with defensible frontiers, 3.25 million German inhabitants of the borderlands of Bohemia were included in that new state.
• The German-speaking citizens of Austria were expressly forbidden to join Germany proper, because the unification of those two Germanic states was deemed an intolerable menace to the security of the newly formed nations of Eastern Europe.
treaty of versailles
an agreement signed after world war 1 to punish germany and take measures to not have another world war happen.
american withdrawl
• United States Senate refused to accord its constitutionally prescribed consent to the three pacts signed by President Wilson.
hyperinflation on germany
• In 1922, a loaf of bread cost 163 marks. By September 1923, this figure had reached 1,500,000 marks and at the peak of hyperinflation, November 1923, a loaf of bread cost 200,000,000,000 marks.
spread of economic nationalism
• - advantages of economic self-sufficiency;
• - the danger of dependence on foreign markets and sources of supply.- lessons learned
• The number of independent economic units in Europe increased from twenty to twenty-seven.
• Urban centers (such as Vienna) were severed from their food supply in the agricultural hinterlands;
• Industrial sectors (such as the Bohemian region of Czechoslovakia) were separated from their traditional sources of raw materials in those parts of the Habsburg empire that had been allocated to other states;
• the new frontiers often cut across the existing and most efficient means of transportation (thus, the railway system of Czechoslovakia was centered on Vienna rather than on the Czech capital, Prague, causing considerable confusion and inefficiency in the economic relations between rump Austria and the new Czechoslovak Republic).
• The Emergency Tariff Act of May 1921 raised duties to their highest level in modern American history.
• Underdeveloped nations that lacked the productive factors that would have permitted them to replace European imports with their own domestic output increasingly turned to the United States or Japan as alternative sources of industrial products.
locarno treaties -1925
• Seven agreements negotiated at Locarno, Switzerland, in 1925
• First World War Western European Allied powers and the new states of Central and Eastern Europe sought to secure the post-war territorial settlement, in return for normalising relations with the defeated German Reich.
• Locarno divided borders in Europe into two categories: western, which were guaranteed by the Locarno treaties, and eastern borders of Germany with Poland, which were open for revision.
• A mutual guarantee of the frontiers of Belgium, France, and Germany, guaranteed by Britain and Italy.
• Arbitration between Germany and Belgium, and Germany and France, regarding future disputes.
• Similar arbitration treaties between Germany and Poland, and Germany and Czechoslovakia.
flappers
• The classic image of a flapper is that of a stylish young party girl. Flappers smoked in public, drank alcohol, danced at jazz clubs and practiced a sexual freedom that shocked the Victorian morality of their parents.
prohibition
• Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the federal ban and defined the types of alcoholic beverages that were prohibited. WHY?
• to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America.
• Not all alcohol was banned; for example, religious use of wine was permitted.
• Following the ban, criminal gangs gained control of the beer and liquor supply in many cities. By the late 1920s, a new opposition to Prohibition emerged nationwide.
stock market crash
• On October 24, 1929, as nervous investors began selling overpriced shares en masse, the stock market crashed.
• A record 12.9 million shares were traded that day, known as “Black Thursday.”
• Five days later, on October 29 or “Black Tuesday,” some 16 million shares were traded after another wave of panic swept Wall Street.
• Millions of shares ended up worthless, and those investors who had bought stocks “on margin” (with borrowed money) were wiped out completely.
• Downturn in spending and investment led factories and other businesses to slow down production and begin firing their workers.
great depression
a period in thr twenties when everybody was poor
new deal
• The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939.
• "3 R's": relief for the unemployed and for the poor, recovery of the economy back to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.
japan military
• Ikki Kita was an early 20th-century political theorist who advocated a hybrid of state socialism with “Asian nationalism,” which blended the ultranationalist movement with Japanese militarism.
• The extreme right became influential throughout the Japanese government and society.
spanish civil war
• Spanish Civil War- 1936-1939
• Republicans loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the unstable Second Spanish Republic, in alliance with both communist and syndicalist anarchists, fought against an insurrection by the Nationalists, an alliance of monarchists, conservatives and traditionalists, led by a military junta- General Francisco Franco
• The Nationalists won the war, which ended in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.
• Germany and Italy helped Franco.
mussolini
• In a 1921 speech in Bologna, Mussolini stated that "Fascism was born ... out of a profound, perennial need of this our Aryan and Mediterranean race«
• Mussolini was referring to Italians as being the Mediterranean branch of the Aryan Race, Aryan in the meaning of people of an Indo-European language and culture.
• Mussolini claimed that the world was divided into a hierarchy of races and that history was nothing more than a Darwinian struggle for power and territory between various "racial masses".
rise of hitler
• One early admirer of the Italian Fascists was Adolf Hitler, who had begun to model himself and the Nazi Party upon Mussolini and the Fascists.
• The Nazis, led by Hitler and the German war hero Erich Ludendorff, attempted a “March on Berlin” modeled upon the March on Rome, which resulted in the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in November 1923.
beer hall putsch -1923
• Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting of 3,000 people organized at a beer hall in Munich.
• Hitler announced that the national revolution had begun and declared the formation of a new government.
nazi party
• Mein Kampf sold 228,000 copies between 1925 and 1932.
• Hitler agreed to respect the state's authority and promised that he would seek political power only through the democratic process.
• The Nazi Party rose from obscurity to win 18.3 per cent of the vote and 107 parliamentary seats in the 1930 election, becoming the second-largest party in parliament.[
• Hitler ran against Hindenburg in the 1932 presidential elections. Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election, garnering more than 35 per cent of the vote in the final election.
hitler as chancellor - reichstag fire
• On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire.
• At Hitler's urging, Hindenburg responded by signing the Reichstag Fire Decree, drafted by the Nazis, which suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial.
night of the long knives
• Hitler, urged on by Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis' paramilitary organization, known colloquially as "Brownshirts".
• Hitler purged the entire SA leadership in the Night of the Long Knives.
• 1934- Hindenburg died. Hitler became the Head of State.
lebensraum
• The fertile agricultural land and valuable mineral resources located in Eastern Europe and western Russia could supply Germany with the food and raw materials she needed to survive and prosper as well as affording her an outlet for her surplus population.
hitlers war strategy
• His overriding goal was the conquest of living space in Eastern Europe and Russia.
• He expected to achieve this objective after the prior destruction of France with the cooperation of Italy and the abstention of Great Britain.
• Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference in October 1933.
• German-Polish nonaggression pact was concluded in January 1934- avoidance of the use of force against each other for a period of ten years.
• March 1935- Hitler announced an expansion of the Wehrmacht (German Army) to 600,000 members – six times the number permitted by the Versailles Treaty – including development of an air force (Luftwaffe) and an increase in the size of the navy (Kriegsmarine).
• The primary purpose of the Four Year Plan was to provide for the rearmament of Germany, and to prepare the country for self-sufficiency in four years, from 1936 to 1940.
• The "Four-Year Plan Memorandum" predicated an imminent all-out, apocalyptic struggle between "Judeo-Bolshevism" and German National Socialism, which necessitated a total effort at rearmament regardless of the economic costs.
1936 berlin olympics
• A new 100,000-seat track and field stadium built, as well as six gymnasiums and other smaller arenas.
• The Games were the first to be televised, with radio broadcasts reaching 41 countries.
• German Jewish athletes were barred or prevented from taking part in the Games by a variety of methods. When threatened with a boycott of the Games by other nations, he relented and allowed Black people and Jewish people to participate, and added one token participant to the German team
anschluss
• Hitler sent German troops into Austria on March 12, 1938 where they met no resistance from Austrian military forces.
• Neither power was bound by treaty obligation to defend Austria, and neither was prepared to risk war by enforcing the provision of the Versailles Treaty that forbade the Anschluss.
munich conference
• Emergency meeting of the main European powers – not including Czechoslovakia, took place in Munich, Germany, on 29–30 September 1938.
• An agreement was quickly reached on Hitler's terms, being signed by the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, and Italy.
invasion of poland
• On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents as a pretext to initiate the invasion.
invasion of western europe
• German amphibious and paratroop forces seized the capital and major ports of Norway and occupied Denmark on April 9.
• Germany had instantaneously obtained at virtually no cost a string of strategically located bases in Scandinavia that would subsequently be used for submarine warfare against Great Britain in her home waters.
battle of france
• The German forces breached the French defenses at Sedan on May 16, then veered northward toward the Channel coast to sever the supply lines and communications of the main Anglo-French armies in northeastern France and Belgium.
vichy government
• Marshal Philippe Pétain, a hero of World War I, signed the Armistice of 22 June 1940.
• The regime (Vichy government- established in the town of Vichy) was authoritarian, xenophobic, anti-semitic, corporatist and traditionalist in nature.
• Germany kept two million French prisoners-of-war and imposed forced labour on young French men.
• French soldiers were kept hostage to ensure that Vichy would reduce its military forces and pay a heavy tribute in gold, food and supplies to Germany.
charles de gaulle
• French army officer- Opposed to the decision for an armistice, he had fled to London.
• Broadcast a message to the French people over British radio urging resistance to the German occupation and inviting French military and political authorities to join him in England to resume the struggle against the invader.
battle of britain
• Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Army of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe.
• It has been described as the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces.
advancements of britain
• 1- qualitative superiority of British air power: the new Spitfire and Hurricane fighters fresh off the assembly line were faster, more maneuverable, and possessed greater firepower than the older German Messerschmitts.
• 2- radar, the technique of employing the reflected echo of radio waves to detect distant objects in the atmosphere.
• construction of twenty early warning stations along Britain's Channel coast
• 3- development by British intelligence of an electrically operated cipher machine capable of decoding German radio messages.
• Germany stopped the air attacks in May 1941.
war in mediterranean
• On 9 September 1940, Italian aircraft started preparation bombardments for the invasion of Egypt.
• In East Africa, after some initial offensive actions, the Italian conquest of British Somaliland began in August and annexed the colony.
• After crossing the Albanian border, Italian forces began the Greco-Italian War by invading Greece on 28 October.
• After assembling enough forces the British launched a counter-attack upon the Italians in Egypt, drove the Italians out of Egypt and resulted in the destruction of the Italian 10th Army in February 1941.
• On 25 July 1943, the Italian government deposed Mussolini, the Italian leader, who was subsequently arrested.
• The new government announced that it would continue the war but secretly commenced negotiations with the Allies.
• The Allied invasion of Italy started when the British Eighth Army landed in the toe of Italy in September 1943.
• The Italian government signed the surrender the same day.
operation barbarossa
• The German invasion of the Soviet Union began in June 1941.
• 4 million men, 3,300 tanks, and 5,000 aircraft were sent eastward.
• Stalin and his military advisers were totally unprepared for the German onslaught.
pacific war
• To increase pressure on China by blocking supply routes, and to better position Japanese forces in the event of a war with the Western powers, Japan invaded and occupied northern Indochina in September 1940.
• German successes in Europe encouraged Japan to increase pressure on European governments in Southeast Asia.
• In July 1941 Japan sent troops to southern Indochina, thus threatening British and Dutch possessions in the Far East.
• The United States, Britain, and other Western governments reacted to this move with a freeze on Japanese assets and a total oil embargo.
pearl harbor
• To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter, it was further planned to neutralize the United States Pacific Fleet.
• On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked British and American holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific.
Internment Camps for Japanese Originated US Citizens
• Executive Order 9066 resulted in the removal from their communities and the subsequent imprisonment of all Americans of Japanese descent who resided on the West Coast.
• As a result of the order, nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were dispatched to makeshift “relocation” camps.
holocaust
• The Red army's capture of the Nazi extermination center at Auschwitz in Poland in January, followed by the Anglo-American liberation of the death camps at Dachau, Buchenwald, and Bergen-Belsen in Germany in April, revealed the full extent of the Third Reich's campaign to exterminate the Jewish inhabitants of German-occupied Europe.
• The deliberate slaughter of more than 6 million Jews.
• Those who did not gradually succumb from disease and starvation through forced labor would be instantly dispatched en masse in gas chambers and crematoria.
• The death camps were established at various sites, to which Jews and other groups considered subhuman by the Nazis-such as gypsies and homosexuals, would be transported.
japan- atlantic bombs
• The Allies prepared for a costly invasion of the Japanese mainland.
• This undertaking was preceded by a conventional and firebombing campaign that devastated 67 Japanese cities.
• By July 1945, the Allies' Manhattan Project had produced two types of atomic bombs: "Fat Man", a plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapon; and "Little Boy", an enriched uranium gun-type fission weapon.
• On 6 August, a Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima, to which Prime Minister Suzuki reiterated the Japanese government's commitment to ignore the Allies' demands and fight on.
• Three days later, a Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki.
• Over the next two to four months, the effects of the atomic bombings killed between 90,000 and 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000 and 80,000 people in Nagasaki
atlantic charter
• August 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill held a secret meeting where they discussed the possibility of starting an international peace effort.
• They came up with a declaration called the Atlantic Charter, which outlined ideal goals of war and paved the way for the development of the U.N.
• Among its major points were:
• United States and Britain agreed not to seek territorial gains from the war,
• they opposed any territorial changes made against the wishes of the people concerned
• support the restoration of self-government to those nations who had lost it during the war.
• people should have the right to choose their own form of government.
• access for all nations to raw materials needed for economic prosperity and an easing of trade restrictions.
• international cooperation to secure improved living and working conditions for all;
• freedom of the seas;
• all countries to abandon the use of force.
four policemen
• The Four Policemen would be responsible for keeping order within their spheres of influence: Britain in its empire and Western Europe, the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and the central Eurasian landmass, China in East Asia and the Western Pacific; and the United States in the Western Hemisphere.
• As a preventive measure against new wars, countries other than the Four Policemen were to be disarmed.
• Only the Four Policemen would be allowed to possess any weapons more powerful than a rifle
• Roosevelt’s idea of UN:
• an executive branch with the Big Four,
• an enforcement branch composed of the same four great powers acting as the Four Policemen
• and an international assembly representing other nations
san francisco conference 1945
• Forty-six nations, including the four sponsors, were originally invited to the San Francisco Conference: nations which had declared war on Germany and Japan and had subscribed to the United Nations Declaration of 1942.
• British Foreign Affairs Minister: «Invitations have been issued to all those States which were United Nations»
united nations
• Maintain international peace and security;
• Develop friendly relations among nations;
• Achieve international cooperation in solving international problems; and
• Be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
security council 5 policemen
• «Permanent membership in the Security Council was granted to five states based on their importance in the aftermath of World War II.» (Oppenheim's International Law : United Nations)
• Any reform of the Security Council would require the agreement of at least two-thirds of UN member states in a vote in the General Assembly and must be ratified by two-thirds of Member States. All of the permanent members of the UNSC (which have veto rights) must also agree.- LOOPHOLE
cold war- red scare
• House Un-American Activities Committee – 1947
• In Hollywood, HUAC forced hundreds of people who worked in the movie industry to renounce left-wing political beliefs and testify against one another. More than 500 people lost their jobs. Many of these “blacklisted” writers, directors, actors and others were unable to work again for more than a decade.
chinese civil war
• During WW2:
• China was effectively divided into three regions—Nationalist China under control of the government, Communist China, and the areas occupied by Japan.
• Japan’s defeat set off a race between the Nationalists and Communists to control vital resources and population centres in northern China and Manchuria.
• Chiang Kai-shek, leader of Nationalist government, charged the Communists with armed rebellion.
• China’s internal strife – competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.
• Communist-held territory had increased from about one-tenth of China in early 1946 to one-third in late 1948
• The Nationalists had financed much of the war effort by simply printing more money and had, in the process, destroyed the purchasing power of their currency, the yuan. Some 9 trillion yuan were in circulation in late 1946, but by August 1948 that number had increased to 700 trillion.
• Strikes, student demonstrations, and labour unrest became commonplace
• The Communists gained control of mainland China and established the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, forcing the leadership of the Republic of China to retreat to the island of Taiwan.
greek civil war
• The German occupation had been resisted by two principal Greek guerrilla forces, the communist-controlled EAM-ELAS (“National Liberation Front–National Popular Liberation Army”) and the EDES (“Greek Democratic National Army”).
• Upon the German troops’ withdrawal from Greece, a bitter civil war broke out in Athens on December 1944.
• Communists were defeated.
• King was restored to the throne in 1946.
• A full-scale guerrilla war was reopened by the communists, who had gone underground.
• Between the Hellenic Army of the Greek government (supported by the United Kingdom and the United States) and the Democratic Army of Greece (supported by Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia, and covertly by the Soviet Union via their Eastern European proxies) from 1946 to 1949.
• War of Ideologies –
• Government forces suffered from 1946 to 1948, but they eventually won, largely due to increased American aid.
• The final victory of the western-allied government forces led to Greece's membership in NATO (1952) and helped to define the ideological balance of power in the Aegean Sea for the entire Cold War.
truman doctrine 1947
• This Doctrine was formulated as a reaction to the Soviet pressures on Turkey.
• Moscow put forward claims to Turkish territory in eastern Anatolia and demanded a greater share in governing and policing the Turkish Straits.
• Also, USA wanted to prevent the outbreak of a Communist insurgency in Greece.
• Domino Theory- If the USA will not intervene, Soviet Union will take control of Greece and Turkey and other states in the region will also fall under Communist influence.
• Washington provided military assistance and economic aid to Greece and Turkey.
• Between 1947-1960: USA aid to Turkey totaled around 3 billion USD. This aid enabled Turkey to maintain an armed force of 500.000 men as a deterrent to Soviet designs.
marshall plan
• The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe.
• WHY?
• The United States feared that the poverty, unemployment, and dislocation of the post-World War II period were reinforcing the appeal of communist parties to voters in western Europe.
• The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $115 billion in 2020) in economic recovery programs to Western European economies after the end of World War II.
nato
• The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an intergovernmental military alliance between 28 European countries and 2 North American countries.
• Organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed in April 1949.
Steel Community and European Coal – 1951
• It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany.
• The Treaty created a common market for coal and steel among its member states with freely set market prices, free movement of products, and without customs duties or taxes, subsidies, or restrictive practices.
korean war 1950
• In 1910, Japan annexed Korea, where it ruled until 1945.
• After the war, the United States and the Soviet Union divided Korea along the 38th parallel into two zones of occupation.
• The Soviets administered the northern zone and the Americans administered the southern zone.
• In 1948, as a result of Cold War tensions, the occupation zones became two sovereign states.
• A socialist state, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, was established in the north; while a capitalist state, the Republic of Korea, was established in the south.
• Both governments of the two new Korean states claimed to be the sole legitimate government of all of Korea, and neither accepted the border as permanent.
• The war began in June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea.
• North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union while South Korea was supported by the United Nations, principally the United States.
• North Korean military forces crossed the border and drove into South Korea in June 1950.
• The United Nations Security Council denounced the North Korean move as an invasion and authorized the formation of the United Nations Command and the dispatch of forces to Korea to repel it.
• The Soviet Union was boycotting the UN for recognizing Taiwan (Republic of China) as China, and China (People's Republic of China) on the mainland was not recognized by the UN, so neither could support their ally North Korea at the Security Council meeting.
• China and the Soviet Union made a deal and Soviet Union promised to support Chinese military.
• Chinese army attacked the UN forces which invaded North Korea.
• US and Soviet jets were engaged, but they never attacked each other.
• Seoul was captured four times, and communist forces were pushed back to positions around the 38th parallel, close to where the war had started.
• North Korea was subject to a massive US bombing campaign.
• Korean Armistice Agreement was signed.
- The agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to separate North and South Korea
- The Korean War was among the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, with approximately 3 million war fatalities.
oil middle eastern powers
• By the mid-to-late 1940s, American oil companies controlled at least 42 % of Middle Eastern oil.
• Between 1950s and 1970s, Middle East gradually became the principal source of oil for Western Europe and Japan.
• Oil was not an issue of major conflict between the East and West. But, it was a conflict between the West and Countries in the Region.
• Mosaddiq in Iran wanted to nationalize the Oil companies in 1951.
• Mosaddiq was a nationalist and he formed National Front.
• He was against the power of AIOC (Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) in the country.
• AIOC was practically a state within a state. It built the largest refinery in the world at Abadan, had its own municipal services, built its own roads and airports.
• Management were in the hands of foreigners.
• Majority of its stock was owned by British government.
• There was an agreement between the Shah and AIOC and AIOC had concessions.
• Mosaddig considered AIOC as the «arm of British government» and called for the cancellation of concession.
• Demonstrations spread all around the country.
• Ulama called people «to fight against the enemies of Islam and Iran by joining the nationalization struggle».
• 1951- Iran Parliament nationalized the oil industry and invited Mosaddiq to become the Prime Minister.
• AIOC called for worldwide boycott of Iranian oil.
• USA joined the boycott in 1952.
• Iran was effectively prevented from selling its oil in the international market, and the country plunged into an economic crisis by the almost total loss of oil revenues.
• Mosaddiq also wanted to end Shah’s regime. He passed laws to take control of the army from Shah.
• However, unemployment and prices rose.
• Mosaddiq lost control. Leftist party TUDEH emerged as the major political force in the country.
• A group of military officers wanted to overthrow Mosaddiq. USA and Britain, fearing that TUDEH would lead Iran into Soviet camp, helped the military officers.
• Shah also helped them and in 1953, military coup overthrew Mosaddiq.
• Oil dispute was settled by an arrangement that gave Iran 50 % share of the profits from petroleum.
• Iranian oil recovered its place in international market.
• Shah proclaimed his commitment to the Western alliance.
• Between 1953-1979: No political freedom in Iran. Shah controlled everything.
nasser
• Nasser believed that the army must take the initiative to expel the British, destroy the power of their local collaborators, and reform politics and society.
• To accomplish these goals, following Egypt’s defeat in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, Nasser formed and led the Free Officers Movement. In 1952, the Free Officers executed a nearly bloodless military coup against King Farouk.
nationalism of suez canal
• 1952- Military coup in Egypt.
• It is not a military intervention only, but the replacement of one regime by another.
• REVOLUTION!
• Colonel Nasser was leading the Free Officers who made the coup.
• Core group of Free Officers were pragmatic nationalists and military bureaucrats.
• In 1953, Monarch was abolished and Egypt was declared a Republic.
• Constitution was abolished, all political parties were banned.
• Military took over the control totally.
• July 1956- Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal.
• Proclaimed that the revenues from the canal would be used to fund the development projects. That west refused to sponsor.
• October 1956- Israel attacked Sinai. Britain and France helped Israel. Forces of 3 countries landed on Egyptian territory.
• USA and USSR condemned this attack. USA forced its allies to withdraw from Egypt.
• Egypt retained Suez Canal.
cuban revolution
• U.S. military directly administered the island until 1902, when Cuba became a republic, with sugar as its main commercial export.
• 1933- Batista, a rising star in the Cuban military, served as president himself from 1940-44, and ran for a second term in 1952. Facing defeat, he overthrew the government in a bloodless coup and canceled the elections.
• Castro, a young lawyer and activist, had been running for Congress as part of the Cuban People’s Party before Batista seized power.
• Seeking to arm a revolutionary opposition to the Batista regime, he led a raid against the army barracks in 1953.
• Castro was imprisoned.
• Castro’s trial and imprisonment served to build his reputation as a revolutionary leader.
• Castro was released in 1955- headed to Mexico.
• He began organizing Cuban exiles into a movement.
• November 1956- 82 men representing the movement sailed from Mexico aboard the Granma, a small yacht.
• Most of the group was killed, around 20 of them escaped, including Fidel Castro and one of Castro’s foreign recruits, Argentine-born doctor Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
• A guerrilla campaign against Batista’s better-armed and more numerous forces.
• Batista suspended constitutional protections for Cubans, including freedom of speech and assembly.
• Batista called for a major military offensive against the rebels in the Sierra Maestra mountains in the summer of 1958.
• Rebels swiftly turned back the offensive, forcing the army to withdraw.
• With international media giving favorable press coverage to the revolutionaries, the United States began to withdraw support for Batista’s government,
bay of pigs invasion
• A failed landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution.
• Invaders lost the strategic initiative; the international community found out about the invasion, and U.S. President Kennedy decided to withhold further air support.
Cuban Missile Crisis
• Confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union - an international crisis when American deployments of missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of similar ballistic missiles in Cuba.
• In response to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961, Soviets agreed to Cuba's request to place nuclear missiles on the island to deter a future invasion.
• Kennedy ordered a naval "quarantine" in October to prevent further missiles from reaching Cuba.
• The US announced it would not permit offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba and demanded that the weapons already in Cuba be dismantled and returned to the Soviet Union.
• US and the Soviet Union negotiated.
• The negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union pointed out the necessity of a quick, clear, and direct communication line between the two Superpowers.
vietnam war
• Vietnam had been under French colonial rule since the 19th century.
• During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Vietnam. To fight off both Japanese occupiers and the French colonial administration, political leader Ho Chi Minh—inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism—formed the Viet Minh, or the League for the Independence of Vietnam.
• After the defeat in World War II, Japan withdrew its forces from Vietnam, leaving the French-educated Emperor in control.
• Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh forces took control of the northern city of Hanoi and declared a Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) with Ho Chi Minh as president.
• France backed Emperor set up the state of Vietnam in July 1949, with the city of Saigon as its capital.
• Armed conflict between northern and southern armies continued until the northern Viet Minh’s decisive victory.
• French military withdrawal from Indochina in 1954,
• 1954 Treaty- split Vietnam along the latitude known as the 17th Parallel.
• U.S. assumed financial and military support for the South Vietnamese state. With training and equipment from American military and the CIA, South Vietnam’s security forces cracked down on Viet Minh sympathizers in the south. Named them as Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communist)- arrested 100.000 people.
• The Viet Cong, a South Vietnamese common front under the direction of North Vietnam, initiated a guerrilla war in the south.
• Domino Theory- if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, many other countries would follow.
• August 1964- a U.S. destroyer clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft.
• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave Johnson broad war-making powers, and U.S. planes began regular bombing raids,
• Johnson ordered the deployment of combat units for the first time and increased troop levels to 184,000.
• 1966- large areas of South Vietnam had been designated as “free-fire zones,” heavy bombing by B-52 aircraft or shelling made these zones uninhabitable.
• 1968, 70,000 North Vietnam forces launched the Tet Offensive, a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam.
• With his approval ratings dropping in an election year, Johnson called a halt to bombing in much of North Vietnam.
• MY-LAI MASSACRE- 1968
• U.S. soldiers have mercilessly slaughtered more than 400 unarmed civilians in the village of My Lai.
• More Anti-War Protests in the USA- 1969- 250.000 Protesters
• 1970, a joint U.S-South Vietnamese operation invaded Cambodia, hoping to wipe out DRV supply bases there.
• The South Vietnamese then led their own invasion of Laos, which was pushed back by North Vietnam.
• Violation of international law- sparked a new wave of protests on college campuses across America.
• 1970- Kent State University in Ohio, National Guardsmen shot and killed four students.
• At another protest 10 days later, two students at Jackson State University in Mississippi were killed by police.
• North Vietnam demanded ceasefire.
• Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 saw all U.S. forces withdrawn.
• War between North and South Vietnam continued, however, until April 30, 1975, when North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon, renaming it Ho Chi Minh City.
• 2 million Vietnamese were killed, while 3 million were wounded and another 12 million became refugees.
• 1976- Vietnam was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
rosa parks
• 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus and was arrested.
• In 1900, Montgomery had passed a city ordinance to segregate bus passengers by race.
• According to the law, no passenger would be required to move or give up their seat and stand if the bus was crowded and no other seats were available. Over time and by custom, however, Montgomery bus drivers adopted the practice of requiring black riders to move when there were no white-only seats left
• The first four rows of seats on each Montgomery bus were reserved for whites.
• Buses had "colored" sections for black people generally in the rear of the bus, although blacks composed more than 75% of the ridership.
martin luther king jr.
• The Montgomery Bus Boycott placed a severe economic strain on the public transit system and downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.
• Equality and human rights for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and all victims of injustice through peaceful protest.
• Traveled across the country and around the world, giving lectures on nonviolent protest and civil rights as well as meeting with religious figures, activists and political leaders.
woodstock 1969
• A number of social protest movements that bubbled up during the 1960s – opposition to the Vietnam War, a push for free love and personal autonomy, a clamor for civil rights and equality – seemed to converge in that field in upstate New York.
• Woodstock serves as an enduring symbol of the divides of the Vietnam War — on one side a throng of young people gathered for “peace and music,” on the other more than a half-million of their peers fighting in Vietnam.
• Lineup (some of them)
• Joan Baez
• Santana
• Grateful Dead
• Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Janis Joplin with the Kozmic Blues Band
• The Who
• Jefferson Airplane
• Jimi Hendrix and Gypsy Sun and Rainbows
latin america cold war
• The Cold War in Latin America pitted the United States and its anticommunist but often undemocratic regional allies against real and perceived Soviet proxies in Cuba, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and beyond.
• Latin America was considered by the United States to be a full part of the Western Bloc.
operation pbsccess-guatemala
• American administration started to see the Guatemalan government as communist.
• Operation PBSuccess- The plans included drawing up lists of people within Arbenz's government to be assassinated if the coup were to be carried out.
• Opposition was given enough money to recruit a small force of mercenaries from among Guatemalan exiles and the populations of nearby countries.
• They were called the Army of Liberation.
• The CIA established training camps in Nicaragua and Honduras.
• 1954 Arbenz had become desperate for weapons, and decided to acquire them secretly from Czechoslovakia, which would have been the first time that a Soviet bloc country shipped weapons to the Americas, an action seen as establishing a communist beachhead in the Americas.
• Psychological Warfare- U.S. Information Agency (USIA) writing hundreds of articles on Guatemala based on CIA reports, and distributing tens of thousands of leaflets throughout Latin America.
• 1954- Ultimately, the rebel forces removed Arbenz from power, nullified his reforms, and United Fruit got their expropriated lands back.
school of the americas
• 1946- administrative tasks involved in training the increasing number of Latin Americans attending U.S. service schools in the canal zone.
• 1961- Kennedy ordered the school to focus on teaching "anti-communist" counterinsurgency training to military personnel from Latin America
• U.S. offered training to Latin Americans in riot and mob control, special warfare, jungle warfare, intelligence and counterintelligence, civil affairs, and public information.
• Between 1970 and 1979, cadets from Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, Panama, Peru, and Honduras made up 63 percent of the school's students.
chile- salvador allende
• In 1970, he won the presidency as the candidate of the Popular Unity coalition.
• Nationalization of large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking), and government administration of the health-care system, educational system, a programme of free milk for children in the schools and in the shanty towns of Chile.
operation condor
• United States-backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents.
• It was officially and formally implemented in November 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America.
• Victims included dissidents and leftists, union and peasant leaders, priests and nuns, students and teachers, intellectuals and suspected guerrillas.
• Condor's key members were the governments in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, while Brazil signed the agreement later on.
• -1- a centralized database was created on guerrilla movements, left-wing parties and groups, trade unionists, religious groups, liberal politicians and supposed enemies of the authoritarian regimes involved in the operation.
• -2- people considered political “enemies” at the regional level were identified and attacked.
• -3- operations were carried out to track down and eliminate persons located in other countries in the Americas and Europe.
• Once a target was identified, a team — made up of nationals from one or more member countries — would find and surveil the individual, before a second team snatched and spirited them away to a secret prison, sometimes in the country they’d been found, sometimes elsewhere.
• There they would be held and tortured, including beatings, waterboarding, mock executions, electrocution, rape, and worse, sometimes for months on end. In some cases, family members were kidnapped and tortured, too, or even stolen from them, for no reason beyond sadism.
soviet economy
• A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans.
• Market abolitionism is the belief that the economic market should be completely eliminated from society.
• state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and industrial manufacturing.
• For every enterprise, planning ministries defined the mix of economic inputs (e.g. labor and raw materials), a schedule for completion, all wholesale prices and almost all retail prices.
• Agriculture was organized into a system of collective farms and state farms.
• According to communist theory, capital (means of production) should not be individually owned, with certain negligible exceptions.- all industrial property and virtually all land were collective.
• In 1976 only two thirds of Soviet families had a refrigerator. Soviet families had to wait years to get one, and when they finally got a postcard giving notice they could buy one, they had a fixed one hour slot during which they could pick it up. They lost their chance if they did not arrive in time.
• Around a quarter could not afford a winter hat or coat, which cost an entire month’s wages on average.
soviet-afghan war 1979
• Saur Revolution- 1978 coup when Afghanistan's communist party took power, initiating a series of radical modernization and land reforms throughout the country.
• These reforms were deeply unpopular among the more traditional rural population and established power structures.- Rebellion
• General Secretary of the Communist Party was assassinated.
• the Soviet government decided to deploy the 40th Army across the border in December 1979.
• The UN General Assembly passed a resolution protesting the Soviet intervention.
• Afghan insurgents began to receive massive amounts of support through aid, finance and military training in neighboring Pakistan with significant help from the United States and United Kingdom.
mujahideen
• The Afghan Mujahideen also saw thousands of volunteers from various Muslim countries come to Afghanistan to aid the resistance.
• The majority of the international fighters came from the Arab world, and later became known as Afghan Arabs; the most well-known Arab financier and militant of the group during this period was Osama bin Laden.
perestroika
• "reconstruction", referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system, in an attempt to end the Era of Stagnation.
• Goal- to make socialism work more efficiently to better meet the needs of Soviet citizens by adopting elements of liberal economics.
• 1987- Law on State Enterprise- state enterprises were free to determine output levels based on demand from consumers and other enterprises.
• 1988- Law on Cooperatives- permitted collective ownership of businesses in the services, manufacturing, and foreign-trade sectors. Under this provision, cooperative restaurants, shops, and manufacturers became part of the Soviet scene.
• reforms in the foreign economic sector allowed foreigners to invest in the Soviet Union in the form of joint ventures with Soviet ministries, state enterprises, and cooperatives.
glasnost
• Glasnost was taken to mean increased openness and transparency in government institutions and activities in the Soviet Union.
• commitment of the Gorbachev administration to allowing Soviet citizens to discuss publicly the problems of their system and potential solutions.
• The "Era of Glasnost" saw greater contact between Soviet citizens and the Western world, particularly the United States: restrictions on travel were loosened for many Soviet citizens.
end of history 1989
• The twentieth century saw the developed world descend into a paroxysm of ideological violence, as liberalism contended first with the remnants of absolutism, then bolshevism and fascism, and finally an updated Marxism that threatened to lead to the ultimate apocalypse of nuclear war.
• CLASH OF IDEOLOGIES. ALL AGAINST LIBERALISM!
clash of civilization 1993
• The fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic.
• The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural.
• Conflict between civilizations will be the latest phase in the evolution of conflict in the modern world.
• 1- Civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition and, most important, religion.
• The people of different civilizations have different views on the relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy.
• 3- the processes of economic modernization and social change throughout the world are separating people from longstanding local identities.
• They also weaken the nation state as a source of identity.
• In much of the world, religion has moved in to fill this gap, often in the form of movements that are labeled "fundamentalist."
• 4- The West is at a peak of power. At the same time, however, and perhaps as a result, a return to the roots phenomenon is occurring among non-Western civilizations.
• "Asianization" in Japan
• "re-Islamization" of the Middle East
• 5- Cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and economic ones.
• In conflicts between civilizations, the question is: "What are you?"
• 6- Economic regionalism is increasing.
• The European Community rests on the shared foundation of European culture and Western Christianity.
• The success of the North American Free Trade Area depends on the convergence now underway of Mexican, Canadian and American cultures.